


Catharsis

by Ilral



Category: Wings of Fire - Tui T. Sutherland
Genre: Catharsis Ending, Emotional Baggage, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, F/F, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-13 22:20:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21005066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilral/pseuds/Ilral
Summary: Peril was always cold. She'd steamed across a glacier and left glassy footprints throughout the deadly lowlands of the Sand Kingdom but neither had felt any different from the constant, icy chill she now felt in the clearing. Even Clay's scales, the first scales she'd ever touched without a spill of fire and smoke and screams, were cold as a corpse.





	Catharsis

Peril stared down at the slab of stone in her claws, trying once again to process the words. It was coated in grime, and so was she. It had been weeks since she'd cleaned herself, and nearly as long since she'd spoken to another dragon.

"Ugh! What does this even  _ mean _ ?" she groaned, resisting the urge to snap the slab in two. "I'm opening up, dammit! What do you want?" she roared. There was nobody to listen, of course, but that didn't stop her from loosing a raging jet of blue flame into the canopy over her. The momentary warmth of her own breath washed over her, but it was gone just as fast.

She tossed the slab aside, ignoring the soft sizzle as its superheated edges touched the grass, and crumpled to the ground. The warmth was enough to remind her that she was cold, and that was too much to take. Peril was  _ always _ cold. She'd steamed across a glacier and left glassy footprints throughout the deadly lowlands of the Sand Kingdom but neither had felt any different from the constant, icy chill she now felt in the clearing. Even Clay's scales, the first scales she'd ever touched without a spill of fire and smoke and screams, were cold as a corpse.

_ Admit it, Peril. This world isn't yours. It wasn't made for you,  _ whispered a little voice somewhere deep in the cracks of her brain. It sounded like Scarlet because of course it did. Growling, she got to her feet and picked up the slab again. The desecrated cairn at her feet had been her last hope; a memory from the time that firescales were commonplace and somehow fitted into things.

Ancient Skywings were just as useless as present-day ones, she found. Reading the tablet's words again, she flicked her tail angrily. They were little more than flowery nonsense about getting in touch with your feelings and releasing oneself from limitations. "Argh, that's not an  _ answer _ !" She only barely managed to rein herself in before she set any more trees on fire. "This doesn't mean anything! How is it supposed to cure me?" she shouted, gradually losing tone until the last few words came out as a sob.

Her head ached terribly, and the rising chill told her that her scales were burning hotter than ever. The scorched claw marks in the grass widened, tearing open one of the innumerable scars she'd left across the landscape.  _ I should just go home. Give up on this stupid idea and sleep on a rocky cave floor for the rest of my life _ . Self-pity wasn't the answer, she knew, but it'd feel so good. Clay and Sunny wouldn't mind; they kept a special place for her at Jade Mountain, as comfortable as they could make it.

A loud  _ crack  _ shot through the clearing and she realized that she'd been gripping the stone far too hard. It feel from her claws in pieces, and by instinct she felt that teardrops should've been landing in the dirt beside it. Instead steam curled up from her eyes, fogging her vision and making her blink madly. Rubbing the fog away, she screamed in frustration, slamming her claws into a tree. The bark splintered under her blow and then charred away pointlessly, reduced to ash before she could get any joy out of it.

Something welled up in her throat, and behind her eyes; impossibly hot. She sobbed again, and the tears popped and sputtered on her warming eyelids. Smoke poured off her body and she dug her toes into the freezing earth, feeling the dirt dessicate and crack under her heat. Scarlet’s voice in her head burned away; she gagged and fell on her elbows, flames swirling from her mouth into the pile of earth in front of her. They rose, a wall of fire around her that licked and snapped and suffused her with a lukewarm heat. The warmth of her own pyre seeped into her, but it didn’t soothe, it inflamed. 

The light grew brighter and she pounded at the ground with a curled claw, screaming in rage. She couldn’t control herself, even at the moment she was supposed to be finding peace! How the  _ fuck _ was she supposed to…AARGH!

White light shone through her eyelids and a blast of heat and sound washed over her. 

Peril woke up blinking and covered in even more ash. The air was smoky and hot; it rushed into her lungs and made her cough and choke as she stumbled forward. The ground was hard and grassless, and as she moved forward it sloped up until she climbed up and over the lip of a vast crater; big enough to hold Scarlet’s throne room comfortably. A pillar of white smoke rose from the pit, billowing up into the sky and spreading at its peak like the canopy of a tree.

Speaking of trees, the forest around her seemed to have been, well,  _ obliterated _ . The nearby ones had been blasted down, reduced to charred husks all pointing away from the place that she’d… exploded? “Ack, what is-- _ koff- _ -this?” she wondered aloud, coughing up more ash. In the distance, fires flickered, adding their smoke to the mushroom cloud above her. The scene felt strange; obviously she’d never exploded before but something else felt wrong too, although she couldn’t pin it down. Shrugging, she extended her wings and took to the air, swirling the smoke around herself as she flew out of the mushroom cloud. 

Then she passed beyond the brim of the cloud’s cap, and the sun shone down on her. Warmth radiated through her body, even more than she’d felt when standing in the middle of a massive blaze. She shuddered at the unfamiliar sensation, then blinked. The sun was warm? The air was hot? They certainly weren’t supposed to be. She landed, claws crunching into the dry earth. Its heat soaked up into her paws, strange and yet entirely welcome.

At the same time, a different feeling of warmth suffused her chest. It was quivering and bubbly and then it hit her all at once when she stepped on a fallen branch. The wood broke with a loud  _ crack _ , not the crunching of ash underfoot. Her eyes widened, and then the feeling boiled over and she whooped, flapping her wings excitedly. “AAAH! I can’t believe I did it!” she shouted, the words straining to hold all the joy she’d packed into them. 

Her tail brushed a tree and she felt the unburnt branches flick off of it, each strike painful yet exhilaratingly new. “Haha! Screw you, ancient firescales! I did it myself!” She leapt into the air, streaking in an arc across the sky until she landed in a grassy clearing. 

Tumbling to a halt, she blinked like a surprised dragonet and then dug her claws into the grass. It was soft and warm. Pushing deeper she felt moist earth, which she realized wasn’t a super great sensation, but it still made her shiver with glee. “I am gonna touch  _ so many things _ ,” she declared, flopping over to lay in the grass and feel more of it against her body. A whole new sense had opened up to her; she had no idea where to start. Maybe she’d begin with polished wood, or some fine cushions, or… She realized that there was one  _ particular _ thing she’d been dying to feel for the longest time. With thoughts of soft golden scales drifting through her mind, she got to her feet, stretched out her wings, and took off. 


End file.
